


Cultured Passions

by Glare



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arranged Marriage, Bonding, Canon-Typical Violence, Cults, Discussion of mpreg, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Miscarriage, Missions Gone Wrong, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sexual Slavery, Undercover Missions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23490925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glare/pseuds/Glare
Summary: In order to bring down a smuggling ring known for trafficking Force-Sensitive omega children, Alpha Jedi Knight Obi-Wan finds himself embroiled in a deep cover assignment among a primal cult who serve as the trafficker's primary clients. However, as his status within the cult grows and he gets closer and closer to the man at the center of it all, he is forced to make his most difficult decision yet: blow his cover and ruin years of work, or work together with the young, fiery, eerily-familiar omega that the Master has chosen to be his mate.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 53
Kudos: 409





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! If this concept looks suspiciously familiar, it should! The first few chapters of this fic were initially posted under my collection of tumblr prompts, but I'm now five chapter into this fic with more incoming, so I might as well move it to its own WIP. The chapters previously posted there have been cleaned up to post here, but no major content changes have been made :)

The cells are cold. They have always been cold, for as long as Anakin can remember. Cold and sterile, white walls and a duracrete floor. A row of bars along the front to allow a view in for those wandering the long hall beyond. There is not much of a view out; Anakin has looked before. Lines of identical cells filled with broken, mindless omegas. The air carries an ever-present scent of them, of their despair and hopelessness and the sweet tang of their heats. For a time, Anakin had nearly succumbed to that same hopelessness. Nearly became one of the Master’s nameless masses, raised like livestock, used and discarded with the same dispassion. Almost, but not quite.

Instead, Anakin shivers against the chill in his thoughts and the air, curling up in the fabric of his small nest. His body had never quite adjusted to anything cooler than the heat of Tatooine’s twin suns, but the Master prefers his slaves in their nakedness to the expense of dressing and laundering them. The sleeping mat is thin, the sheets thinner, but it is better than laying on the rough duracrete. Anakin knows he has it better than many of the other omegas along this block. It is the benefit of being favored, even if he never understood why. The Master has never touched him the way he has used the others, never told him what he was waiting for, but the caretaker claimed he was special as she brought him little trinkets of affection.

Now, he knows why.

“Please, dear, it can be easy,” his caretaker murmurs, pushing the cup a little bit closer. A few drops of the thick, green liquid within slosh over the edges and dribble down the side of the glass. Anakin scowls at it, as he has all that came before it. “Just drink.”

It could be easy. He could reach out, choke down the bitter concoction, and allow himself to surrender to its effects. He could allow himself to succumb to the heat that would boil beneath his skin. He could mewl and cry and writhe on the great altar, the way he knows they want him to. He could beg for the Master’s chosen Heir to give him what only an alpha can. To get the accursed ritual over with and serve the purpose that Master has always planned for him. It would be so, so easy to give in.

But Anakin will not give them the satisfaction. They may own his body, may control his mind with their cocktails of drugs, but they still do not own his soul. He is, and has always been, Anakin Skywalker. Not a slave, not breeding stock, not a mindless follower of men who call themselves Master. What they wish to have, they will have to take. He glares pointedly at the cup, then his caretaker, before rolling over to face the wall. He does not turn around, even when he feels the edge of the nest dip with her weight.

“Please,” she chides, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder that only spurs him to curl further into himself, “please don’t be difficult. We don’t want to make this harder than it needs to be.”

“Then don’t,” he rasps, a plea and a challenge all at once. He would give anything to make this stop here: for her to walk out of his cell and leave him to his isolation. But he knows she won’t. She’ll summon her guards, and they’ll hold him down, and he’ll take their poison whether he wants to or not.

He knows she’s already called for them even before the scrape of the door announces their arrival. He could hear the sounds of their heavy boots on the duracrete floor and feel their malicious presence in the air around him. Anakin does not reach out much these days, using the Force that Master Jinn had told him about so many years ago. There is rarely anything to feel, beyond the despair of the caged omegas and the twisted pleasure of their alpha guards.

“Please, dear,” she warns once again, the last such warning he will receive, and he ignores her. Lets the growl perched high in his throat rumble through the small cell. 

It was one of the first things they trained out of the motley collection of omega children that arrived with Anakin: the desire, the ability, to hiss and growl and spit at the motherly old betas into whose custody they were turned. To make their displeasure known. The Master’s omegas are quiet and mindlessly obedient. To growl as he has—it is the direst of insults.

As such, he’s not surprised when they pounce on him after that.

Anakin does the best he can to struggle, all things considered, his heart racing with the elation of resistance. He has not fought so hard, so violently, since his first weeks in this place. Perfectly manicured nails scratch and claw at the thick fabric of the guards’ uniforms, digging viciously into whatever skin he manages to expose. They grunt and curse with their frustration, dragging him from the nest to the cool floor before binding his wrists behind him with the very sheets he’d lain upon. The side of his face stings from they threw him against rough duracrete; The Master will be displeased about the damage to his most prized omega.

With a firm hold on his hair and his bindings, one guard drags him to his knees and tugs his head back. Anakin hisses at the unpleasant sting in his scalp, and the other guard takes hold of his face, plugging his nose. He struggles, of course, against the handling. Feels his face redden and his lungs burn as he strains to draw breath through his blocked nose, stubbornly refusing to open his mouth. He has begun to see stars, the edges of his vision dimming, when his body finally betrays him. He gasps raggedly, swiftly filling his lungs, and his caretaker is ready.

She leaps at the opportunity he unwillingly presents her, sloshing a not insignificant portion of the drink down his throat before he can close his mouth. Anakin chokes and gags on the bitter taste and the horror of realization. He retches, but they do not relent. The guard holding his bindings steadies him, and with a firm hold on his jaw, the caretaker pours the remainder of the concoction into his mouth. He bites her when she lets go, her pained shriek well worth the clump of hair the guard rips out when he tears Anakin off her.

They let him go, after that. His hands remain bound and they don’t leave him alone, but they do allow him to settle on his belly on the cool floor when he slumps in their grip. The drugs are fast-acting, potent even without the full dosage of inducers. He can almost feel them coursing through his veins, heating his skin from the inside as they go, until he feels too-hot and overly-sensitive. He squirms and mewls on the floor, the texture of the duracrete suddenly growing too rough where it had before been tolerable. 

“There now,” his caretaker purrs, reaching down as if to pet him. “That wasn’t so hard, was if?” She doesn’t quite touch him, reconsidering when Anakin snaps at her again. The drugs render him too slow to make contact even if he wanted to, but the threat is enough to deter her from trying again. “Bring him to the refresher,” she instructs them. “He must be cleaned before the ceremony.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the guards reply, and the eyes of the countless broken, caged omegas follow him as Anakin is dragged from the sanctuary of his cell toward an uncertain future.

* * *

“You should be grateful, you know,” the caretaker says, drawing the omega from his heat-hazy thoughts. She sloshes a small bucket of cool water over his head, wetting his hair, and lathers soap into his messy curls. She’s all Anakin has in this place: a petite, beta woman with pale skin, dark hair and eyes. She brings his meals, bathes him, sees to his health. She is as close to a friend as he has, despite the distinct feeling she sees him as more of a pet than a human. Her betrayal stings like bacta in an open wound. “The Master’s heir is a wonderful man. You were very lucky to be chosen for him; many others in the family would be envious of such an opportunity.”

Anakin grumbles, non-committal, and returns to watching the world spin lazily around him. Sometimes he sees things that aren’t there; the shadows dance, in the corner of his eye. It had frightened him when he first arrived at the compound, turning him off food for over a week after his first terrifying trip on the Family’s tainted food, but the Master and his Children only tolerated his disobedience for so long. Faster than Anakin would have liked, the potent drugs mixed with his meals became as expected a part of his routine as anything else. It keeps him and the other stock calm and pliant, and the additional heat inducers forced down his throat have only served to amplify their effects.

He is not pliant enough to willingly give himself to the Master’s Heir, however. Anakin has seen the alpha in passing before, as he and the Master strolled through the cell block, heads bowed together in discussion. What the Heir lacks in imposing stature, he makes up for with a sharp intelligence that gleams behind his bright blue eyes. Anakin has only been bold enough to meet his gaze a scarce few times, in the year since the Heir began working closely with the Master. He hates the spark of connection that burns through his mind whenever they lock eyes. He hates that he knows that Heir is hiding something, hates that he doesn’t understand how he knows this, and has little interest in finding out just what lurks beneath the alpha’s closed doors.

If he had his way, Anakin would happily hand the opportunity to perform the ritual to some other, more willing soul. However, it has been a very long time since his desires meant anything to anyone. When he is deemed clean, they will chain him to the altar whether he wants to be there or not. He has seen it before, and will undoubtedly see it again. When the Master selects a mate for one of his alphas, there is little an omega can do.

He could raise concerns about the Heir. Secrets are not welcome among the Family, and those believed to keep them are met with heavy scrutiny. He’s considered it before, but every time he’s tried to speak the words, they’ve stuck in his throat and died on his tongue. He doesn’t understand why, but he remains silent.

The caretaker, in all these years he’s never learned her name, dumps another bucket over his head to rinse the lather from his hair. He blinks against the sting of the soap in his eyes as she takes a rag to his skin next, grateful for the excuse he’s been given to let a few tears fall down his cheeks and drip-drop into the tub. She scrubs the dirt and grime from his skin with single-minded focus, and if she notices, does not comment.

“Why me?” he finally asks, when he can take it no longer. There are plenty of more suitable omegas locked away within the Master’s dungeons. Prettier, more docile, believers. Omegas who had bought into what the Master’s preaching if only to save themselves from the misery of isolation. Not Anakin, who has always resisted. Anakin, who has always fought.

She smiles at him, a sickly-sweet thing. “Because you’re special, dear,” she says, and elaborates no further. 

Anakin doesn’t feel special when she pulls him from the cold water and snaps a thick metal collar around his throat. He doesn’t feel special when she binds his wrists behind him and slips the cool cage of a muzzle over his face. When she leads him from the baths by his chains, Anakin feels like a man condemned.


	2. Chapter 2

The crowds are already gathered when they drag him to his fate. A winding trail through the planet’s lush jungle foliage leads them to an open clearing, where a slab of carved, black stone protrudes from the earth and serves as the Master’s ceremonial altar. Alphas, betas, omegas, and their offspring line the edge of the large clearing, dressed in their finest ceremonial robes. They chatter excitedly among themselves, for this is a day of celebration for them. This is the day the Heir takes a mate, and his full place at the Master’s side. His full place as a member and the future leader of their twisted Order. They have waited many years for the Master to name a successor, grown restless as he grew older, worried for the sake of their Order—though they had dared not speak those sentiments aloud. But today their fears are to be alleviated, and they can move forward knowing their precious way of life will be preserved under the watchful eye of a strong new leader.

Some of the crowd quiets as they drag him to the center of the circle, the omegas dipping their heads in respect while the alphas openly leer at his nakedness. It would make Anakin’s skin crawl, either way, if the heat boiling beneath his skin weren’t already causing the sensation. What is about to happen is far from respectful, and if he had his way, he would gouge the eyes from all the alphas who dared to treat him like a commodity. Who dared to treat all the omegas in this forsaken place as things to be taken and used and discarded like toys. They are people, even if many have long ago forgotten that. Lip curling into an ungly snarl behind the wire mesh of the muzzle, Anakin finds that he is no longer quite so appealing in the eyes of those lustful alphas, who value omegan obedience above all things.

They chain him with his back to the smooth stone, hands secured above his head and his feet flat against the lush grassess. The caretakers fuss over and around him, wiping any last imperfections from his skin and painting it in vibrant patterns, but Anakin pays them no heed. He is too busy staring up at the blue skies he’s missed desperately these long, long years in his cell. Anakin is a child of Tatooine’s wilds, spending the days of his youth chasing its endless horizon. Trapped in his cell beneath the cold earth, missing the twin suns and the blanket of stars, had been a fate worse than death. A part of him thought he would never see the sky again, and despite the unfortunate circumstances, he is happy to have one last chance to feel the sun warm his skin. Closing his eyes, he allows himself to bask against the sun-kissed stone. The caretakers finish their work and pray over him, blessing him, as though he needs any other blessing the fresh air he pulls into his lungs with every greedy breath.

A hush falls over the clearing when the Master arrives, the wrinkled old alpha limping his way to the center of the clearing with the help of an ornate walking stick. He was young, handsome, and charismatic in his youth, though time has not been kind to him. Still his followers hang on his every word, every promise. So much respect and reverence, misplaced and wasted on such a horrible man. He isn’t really listening, when the alpha launches into his grand speech. Anakin has heard it a hundred times before, preached from just outside the bars of his cage. The chosen people of the Force, their duty to carry on ancient tradition, yadda yadda yadda. Maybe to these lost souls, so far from the bright center of the universe that is Coruscant. So far from the Jedi Order, the true Order, that guides so many souls onto a brighter path.

He never should have left the safety of their Temple.

When the Master is finished with his speech, he calls for the Heir to be led into the clearing, next. The alpha is bound and chained very similarly to Anakin, dressed only in a loose loin cloth that leaves nothing to the imagination. His pale skin has been painted in vibrant colors to imitate the legends of the ancient Force wielders worshipped by these people, matching the patterns painted over Anakin. This is not unsurprising, being a staple of the cult’s mating ceremony. No, what surprises Anakin is the way the Heir sways drunkenly on his feet, stumbles when they lead him forward to the center of the clearing where Anakin and the Master wait. He does not know much about the Heir, but he does know this ceremony, and this is a startling change of pace.

It’s not uncommon to find the cult’s omegas dosed with any number of chemical cocktails in order to achieve the desired effects--whether that be compliance or heat or something else entirely. Even the most committed of omegas occasionally got cold feet at the altar, needing a little extra encouragement, but never the alphas. The Master’s alphas are always excited to prove themselves before the cult, eager in both mind and body. They never require any chemical assistance in order to perform. One would think the Master’s chosen Heir would be even more eager than the rest, and yet as they lead the alpha closer and closer to the altar, Anakin sees a dazed, glazed-over look to his eyes. Can taste the rut inducers on his tongue. 

By the time they chain the alpha before him, the man’s hips slotted between Anakin’s thighs, Anakin is quite certain that they have drugged the Heir, though for the life of him he cannot understand why. The chemical tang of inducers is interlaced with the alpha’s musky scent, which would have otherwise been quite pleasant. Unfortunately the heat has made Anakin’s nose far more sensitive than usual, and even the needs of his body are not enough to quiet his distaste for the unpleasant smell. What is, however, is the pull of the Force, stronger than he’s felt since that day so many years ago that Master Jinn wandered into Watto’s junk shop and changed the course of his life.

This close, there is no avoiding the Heir’s eyes, but Anakin doesn’t think he could even if it were an option. He’s drawn in, inexplicably pulled by the call of the Force. Nose to nose, chest to chest, breathing in the same air; the separation of their minds is only in the physical. The connection that sparked to life the first time they locked eyes through the bars of his cell is a blinding, all-consuming thing. Anakin can hear the Heir’s thoughts, feel his emotions, taste the chemical tang of inducers on his tongue.

There is the rut, yes, at the fore-front of his mind. It is a demanding thing, taking most of the Heir’s will to control, but there is more beneath those consuming flames. Guilt, shame, sorrow. Those secrets Anakin had feared, that made him wary, are bared for him to see. He is startled to find that they are the same as his own.

“You don’t want to be here,” Anakin murmurs in his realization, and if his hands were unbound, he would perhaps take the man’s face between them. Feel the texture of his beard and his thin lips. There is a dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose that he never noticed before, seeing him from such a distance. “You don’t want this any more than I do.”

The Heir flinches at his words, at his honesty, but Anakin knows that their mutual shame will not change what happens next. Whatever they gave the Heir, it is stronger than what was forced upon Anakin. He can feel the alpha trembling with the effort of his restraint, forcing himself to remain still even when the induced rut compels him to claim the omega pinned beneath him.

With a grimace, the alpha presses his brow to Anakin’s, his nose brushing the metal cage of the muzzle. “I’m...so sorry...” he whines, and Anakin shushes him. 

The man’s sincerity is a blindingly clear thing in the Force. He no more wants to be participating in the Master’s twisted ceremony than his chosen omega. Everything in him pulses with his shame and disgust for the situation. How he came to be in this position is a mystery to Anakin, but one that will have to be put aside for when the effects of the inducers have worn off. They will have plenty of time alone, as a newly bonded pair.

“It’s alright,” Anakin whispers. “I...I forgive you.”

The Heir sighs, a weary, resigned thing, and Anakin can barely make out his quiet reply. “...Thank you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Obi-Wan wakes to the distant beeping of medical monitors and the peaceful silence of solitude. It is something he has not had very often in his years spent with the cult, and especially not since taking up the position of the cult Master’s Heir. Followers come and go from his quarters at all hours of the day, bringing him more and more their small problems to solve as he takes on more and more of the aging Master’s responsibilities. There are rarely mornings where he is allowed to rest uninterrupted, and he finds himself quite content to bask in this elusive pleasure. He is warm, both in mind and body. The Force glows around him with the soothing touch of the Light, bleeding the aches and pains from his sore body and filling him up with a contentment he has missed in his time away from the Jedi Temple.

It has been too long since he truly had a moment to himself. 

“You look like a fucking wolfman, Kenobi.”

The sudden announcement breaks the peace of the room, startling him into full mental awareness even if his body is slower to respond. The voice is one he knows well, and when he finally cracks open uncooperative eyes, the alpha is both surprised and not to find Quinlan Vos seated at his bedside. The other alpha grins widely at him, mischievous light sparking in his eyes as he takes in Obi-Wan’s shaggy hair and overgrown beard. 

“Seriously, man. I agree keeping the cover is important, but there was no need to let yourself go.”

“Quin,” Obi-Wan hoarsely groans, bringing up clumsy hands to try and scrub some of the sleep from his eyes. He isn’t terribly successful, but it does help enough to allow him a better observation of the world around him.

He’s tucked beneath the blankets of a cot in a sterile, white room. Medical equipment dots the counters and hangs on racks beside his bed, displaying numbers and graphs as they monitor his system’s functions through the various wires and leads stuck to his skin. He feels cleaner than he has in months, even if his hair and beard have been left in their wild and unkempt state. Around him, the Force glows with Light and pulses with the vibrant sensations of life, so very different from the blanket of omegan despair that seemed to lay over the cult’s compound like a wet blanket.

“Am I--?”

“Back at the Temple?” Quinlan interrupts. “Yeah.”

Obi-Wan’s brow furrows as he tries to remember, but he has no memory of completing his mission or coming home. He had sent a transmission for his check-in with the Temple, and then the Master invited him for drinks in his quarters. But after that...nothing at all. A terrifying gap in his memory. “How did I get here?”

He tries not to let his concern show in his voice, but some of it must have bled through, because Quinlan grimaces. “Your last transmission to the Council was intercepted,” he begins, wringing his hands in an uncharacteristic display of anxiety. “We don’t know who or how yet, but someone must have figured out you were reporting back to Jedi about the cult’s activities. The Council sent in an extraction team as soon as they found out, but by the time we got there, most of the omegas had been moved. They’ve gone to ground again.”

Obi-Wan feels his heart drop at Quinlan’s words. “Were we able to get any of them?” He forces himself to ask, even though there is a part of him terrified to know the answer.

Quin offers him a weak grin, an attempt at reassurance. “Yeah, buddy,” the other alpha says with a fabricated cheerfulness. “About ten or so, on the same transport we pulled you off of. A few of the followers, too. Windu doesn’t think they’re going to start talking any time soon, but I think..”

Quinlan keeps talking, explaining his plan to get the captured members of the cult to turn on their Master, but Obi-Wan has already stopped listening. Instead, he considers the rows and rows of cold, sterile cells he walked beneath the cult’s compound. Each and every one of them had been filled, sometimes with more than one occupant: frightened young omegas, stolen from their lives to serve the twisted purposes of a sick, self-important man. All of them were pale and too-thin from their confinement, their eyes glazed over from sedatives and their muscles wasting from disuse. All except him, the one Obi-Wan could never allow himself to look at. The one with a fire still burning behind his eyes, despite the fact that he’d been there nearly the longest of them all.

Four years of deep cover, four years of his life, ruined by a single transmission. Four years of hard work, watching those poor omegas suffer at the Master’s hand, and for what? He’d set his morals aside because he believed it for the greater good. He believed that if he just got close enough to the Master, he could bring an end to his reign of terror and save them all--only to have everything slip through his fingers. He was so close. A few more months, and he would have had them.

Instead, they’d only managed to save ten.

“Hey.” A warm hand settles over his, squeezing it firmly and drawing Obi-Wan from his thoughts. Quinlan is frowning at him, a sympathy Obi-Wan doesn’t want written plainly across his face. “You can’t beat yourself up over this. You did everything you could.”

“I should have been more careful,” Obi-Wan hisses, snatching his hand away and smoothing down the already perfectly starched blankets. “I should’ve…”

He trails off helplessly, unable to find the words. There are so many things he should have done, when he looks back over the years, but he can do nothing to change that now. Instead, all he can do is open himself up to the Force, trying to release some of his despair to the Light. He’s not as successful as he likes, but it has been a long time since he’s had the opportunity to indulge in a proper meditation session. It will come, with time, and he is certain to have plenty of it now that he’s back in the Temple for the foreseeable future. Between the debriefing process and the mental assessments that come with deep cover assignments, it will be months if not longer before the Council gives him another mission.

“There’s, um, one more thing we need to talk about…” Quin begins hesitantly. Obi-Wan isn’t quite sure he wants to hear any more of what Quinlan has to say, after the revelations of the day so far. He hasn’t even been conscious for more than a half hour. “I know Windu wanted to be the one to break it to you, but I really think this is something that should come from a friend and not--”

“Just spit it out, Vos,” Obi-Wan snaps, his patience abruptly wearing out.

“One of the omegas on the transport with you...he’s um...he’s yours.”

Kenobi scowls. “My what?”

“Your mate.”

“...my what!?”


	4. Chapter 4

“His name is Anakin Skywalker,” Windu says, staring through the pane of one-sided transparisteel into a holding cell converted to a small medical bay. “He’s nineteen, native to the planet Tatooine. He has one surviving relative, his mother, but without an organized government or any kind of record-keeping system, we’ve been having a hard time tracking her down to let her know that her son is alive.” 

“I’m surprised you managed to get that much out of him, in the state he’s in,” Obi-Wan replies, watching the omega within rest inside the small nest he’s built himself in one corner of the room. Another omega might have been able to sense an alpha’s observation and been made uncomfortable by the attention, but the omegas in the Master’s collection tended to quickly become desensitized from such things. The only thing that gives away that the omega--no, Anakin--suspects there is more to the mirror on the opposing wall is the structure of the nest itself: a wall of cushions piled higher on the side facing the window.

“We didn’t,” Windu corrects, fingers drumming impatiently on his crossed arms. “This isn’t the first time that Anakin Skywalker has crossed paths with the Jedi Order--or you, for that matter.”

Obi-Wan tilts his head, trying to place the boy’s face against those he has met over the years. It is difficult, however, to see more than the sullen face that glared at him through the bars of a cell. “His name is familiar,” he confesses, “though I’m having trouble placing it.”

Mace sighs. “That is understandable. We first encountered Anakin Skywalker ten years ago, on your final mission with the late Master Jinn. He freed a young slave when you crash landed on the planet Tatooine. Do you recall?”

Of course he does. It all rushes back to him then, the fateful mission that had led to the death of his Master and his full induction to the Order as a Jedi Knight. Master Jinn had won the freedom of a scruffy slave boy along with the parts they needed to repair their downed ship, and brought the young Force-Senstive back to the Temple to train him in the ways of the Jedi. It had been Jinn’s dying wish for Obi-Wan to train him in his stead, but the Council had overruled his request.

Anakin Skywalker was nine years old, far beyond the typical age of the younglings brought to the Temple. More than that, he was powerful; the most powerful Force user that the Jedi had encountered in a very long time. The Council had agreed that a more experienced Master would be necessary to help the boy along the Jedi path, and not a young Knight struggling to overcome his own battle with his emotions in the wake of his Master’s death. Despite previously claiming he would never take another Padawan, Master Windu himself had offered to be Skywalker’s mentor. But the young omega had hesitated at the prospect of training with an unfamiliar alpha, one without the bond of trust that he had built in the short time he spent with Master Jinn. And then the Council had offered him an alternative...

“I thought Anakin had elected to return home and free his mother after Master Jinn was killed? What was he doing with a Force Cult on the other end of the Outer Rim?”

Windu sighs, his eyes dropping away from the window, the Force around them darkening with something that almost feels like guilt. “Anakin and his Jedi escort were on their way to Tatooine when their transport was attacked. Most of the passengers were killed, including the escorting Jedi Knight, but Skywalker and several other children aboard the transport were unaccounted for. Research into the missing children revealed them to also be omegas, which led us to suspect this was more than just a random attack by a band of pirates desperate for a few easy credits.”

“So you began to look into omega trafficking in the Rim,” Obi-Wan concludes. He knew that the Council had been looking into the matter long before he’d been assigned to the task, but he hadn’t realized just how long they had been hunting. A fresh wave of guilt washes over him, thinking of all the years of work he’s ruined.

“Yes. We had hoped to find Skywalker and return him home, but it took time to find the primary source of the funds behind the traffickers: the Cult you’ve been undercover with. Years more for an operative to successfully infiltrate the group. But there were so many shallow graves left in the way of the cult’s movements, Obi-Wan. So many bodies mangled beyond identification. We could do nothing but assume that Skywalker was lost.”

But Skywalker wasn’t lost at all. He was staring out sullenly through the bars of a barren cell all these years, waiting for someone to rescue him from that hellish place. That spark of connection that passed between them every time they locked eyes was not some random working of the Force, but a real, tangible bond that lingered in their years apart. They hadn’t bonded in the same way that Anakin and Qui-Gon had, freeing the boy from slavery had garnered the Jedi Master his favor, but he can only imagine how tightly Skywalker must have clung to those last vestiges of his Jedi prospects in order to maintain that delicate connection between them. 

“You could have done something!” Obi-Wan hisses, his temper spiking with his grief. “You could have searched harder! Invested more manpower to the hunt! Shortened the time frame once I was successful in infiltrating the cult! You could have told me about what happened to Skywalker!”

This is perhaps what rankles his alpha sensibilities the most. Skywalker had been left in his care, when Master Jinn was killed. He had trusted that the Council would see to his safety, returning him home to the mother he so missed. But they had failed, and worse, had hidden that failure from him. Had he known, he could have sought out the boy. He could have aided in their efforts to find him more effectively than simply watching and waiting as they instructed him to do. Anakin could have been rescued, and spared years of suffering at the hands of a monster.

“Do not tell me what I should have done,” Windu snarls. “I know of my responsibility in what happened to this boy; I am the one who had to look his mother in the eye and tell her that her son was never coming home!”

There is something in Windu’s face, in his voice, that forces Obi-Wan to pause. It is grief, he realizes: raw and unfettered and shockingly out of character for the stoic Jedi Councillor. These passing years have been difficult for more than just him. Windu  _ had _ taken responsibility for young Anakin Skywalker, and for a brief moment, Obi-Wan can feel the Councilor’s pain: the anxiety as he stood over a dozen shallow graves, swallowing nausea, hoping and dreading the possibility of finding their lost youngling among the bodies pulled from the freshly turned soil; of reading Obi-Wan’s every report, the prospect of vengeance whispering in the back of his mind and daring him stray from the straight and narrow path; of his heart twisting in his chest as he held Shmi Skywalker while she cried for her son’s loss.

“I’m...sorry,” he forces himself to say, for lack of anything better. He’s been away from polite society too long to find the right words to settle the man’s unease. “At least he’s safe now.”

Windu nods stiffly, and Obi-Wan stares pointedly at the floor when the man scrubs a hand down his face. “He is, but only time will tell how much what he’s been through has affected him.”


	5. Chapter 5

Anakin’s new cell is much the same as all that came before it: sterile white walls, a sleeping mat, blankets to nest with. The sleeping mat is thicker than those he’s had before, and the blankets warmer, but he supposes the Master must think he deserves them now that he’s officially mated and likely carrying the Heir’s spawn. A few medical monitors whine in their displeasure nearby, the leads connected to Anakin’s skin yanked off in an earlier fit of anger. There is intrusive, and then there is  _ too intrusive _ . If they wish to monitor his vitals, they are welcome to come and check on him themselves.

There is a part of him surprised that they haven’t, in fact. So soon after their mating ceremony, he would expect his new alpha to remain close by his side, solidifying the rudimentary bond formed by his claiming bite. The wound aches dully in the hollow of his throat, exacerbated every time he turns his neck. He’d prodded at it a few times, attempting to gauge its severity without getting out of the nest. While there is a mirror on the other side of the room, there is a vast expanse of open space between his nest and it. It is not a risk Anakin is willing to take.

As far as he can tell, the claiming bite seems to only be one neat imprint of teeth in the hollow of his throat. Above his collar bone, but not terribly high on his neck. There’s relief in the cleanness of the wound, having watched omegas walk away from the mating ceremony with their necks and shoulders torn and bloodied by their savage alphas. It was encouraged even, the alphas responsible clapped on the shoulders and cheered on as they led their new omega back to their home. Their feral behavior was always rewarded with praise, and Anakin can’t help but wonder if the Master was disappointed by his heir’s restraint. 

He can sense his mate’s presence nearby, but the man’s mind is too occupied to truly notice Anakin’s probing. He must be busy, Anakin thinks, setting up the new compound. It is always an ordeal to relocate—one the Master would complain about as Anakin sat at his side, staring dead-eyed at the floor and swallowing his revulsion while the old man stroked his hair like a treasured pet. There was always so much to be done: supplies to move, shelters to build, bodies to bury. Just the thought makes Anakin nauseous even now.

The Master collected a great many young omegas, in the times when the Order was stable. Pretty young things, snatched from their lives and dragged across the galaxy to waste away in the Master’s cells. Anakin had dared to make friends with one once, and only once. They’d arrived at the compound together, their cells just across the hall. He could have been Anakin’s twin, if not for scars that covered him head to toe. A fire, he’d told Anakin, when he was just a baby. If they really reached for one another, the tips of their fingers would just brush in the center of the aisle. It wasn’t much, but it was enough: grounding in the face of what their life had become.

But a great many young omegas are a great many mouths to feed, and a great many bodies to cram aboard the transports bound for their new home. And so the Master would walk slowly down the center aisle, considering every omega in turn as one might consider a herd of livestock. A subordinate followed at his heel, datapad in hand, silently recording the numbers of the cells the Master rattled off to him as he walked. Anakin didn’t understand, the first time it happened, when the Master paused before his cell and gestured for its number to be added to the list. Not until the guards came, long after the Master had gone.

He’d almost been glad, when the boy across the hall finally stopped screaming.

Anakin was small enough and the Master strong enough then to be carried aboard the transport to their new compound, bundled up in his lap and trembling through the terror that lingered in the days that followed. Young enough to believe the man when he apologized for the things Anakin witnessed, and scared enough to accept without argument the Master’s assertion that such things were necessary. That those imperfect creatures Anakin heard screaming in the night were a necessary sacrifice in the name of progress. Their people needed only the best young omegas, the Master said. The flawed, the broken, would only slow them down.

Anakin is all of these things and more, but his pretty face and his strength in the Force are enough for the Master to look the other way at his defiance. His outbursts, any violence he commits against his guards and caretakers, are treated more like the tantrums of an exhausted toddler than the struggles of a desperate man. The Master doesn’t care about his mind—not really. All he cares for is Anakin’s body, and the Force-strong children he could produce when paired with the right alpha from the Master’s collection.

And he finally got what he wanted, Anakin thinks bitterly as the door slides open to admit a pretty beta woman. He doesn’t recognize her face, but he can’t claim to know every caretaker who serves under the Master. Perhaps the woman who’d cared for him before no longer wished to handle him after he’d bitten her, or perhaps those omegas carrying are simply tended by another set of betas. It does not matter to Anakin, whose warning growl rumbles through the small cell. 

She settles on the floor halfway between the door and his nest, only the wobble in her soft smile betraying nervousness beneath her calm veneer. She is pretty, if plain, the way most of the caretakers are. Brown robes hang loosely on her body, clean and neat. Anakin is starkly aware of his own nakedness in comparison. Someone has dressed him in loose pants, but his torso remains bare to accommodate the monitor's leads.

“Hello, Anakin,” the beta greets, her voice pitched soft and soothing, as the caretakers always try to be. It would be frowned upon to cause undue stress to a newly-carrying mother, after all. “Do you know where you are?”

“A cell,” he grumbles in return. He’d been sedated even before being loaded aboard the transport that carried them away, as he has been since he grew too large to be carried comfortably; he doesn't know anything more about this new compound. Typically, he never sees more than the cell block anyways.

She nods. “Just for now, while we establish where your head is, alright? You’ll be free to go, soon enough.”

Go where, Ankin almost asks, back to the Heir’s quarters? Or perhaps to spend time among the small social groups he often saw the mated omegas in, whenever he was allowed out of his cell? Neither option sounds particularly appealing. While the communal childcare may be a bonus to those omegas, he has little interest in jumping on the bandwagon until he absolutely has to. Ideally, that won’t be until the little runt has already been born, and maybe even later than that.

Scooting closer to the nest, the beta smiles placidly at him, extending a hand into the space between them. “I need to take your vitals, if that’s alright. May I touch you?”

The question catches him off guard, nearly as much as when it finally registers that she had called him by his name. Not a number, or sweetie, or dear, or any other patronizing pet name that the other caretakers had called him over the years. Anakin, his birth name. He didn’t think any of them even knew it; he couldn’t think of a time any of them had bothered to even ask. They certainly never bothered to ask whether or not he wanted them to touch him. 

She must take his silence as acquiescence, or perhaps perhaps she thinks he can’t understand her. Whatever the reason, she leans into his space, pressing her fingers against the pulse point in his neck. It is too close, far too close to the open bonding mark that still pulses with discomfort, and Anakin tears himself away from the light touch with a low growl. The Force pulses around him with his agitation, his underlying fear, and he pushes away the gentle brush of her own mind against his. He does not want her comfort in this way, either.

“Don’t touch me,” he hisses, shifting back as far as he can in the nest, baring his teeth when she seems to consider reaching for him again.

“It’s alright, Anakin,” she soothes, pulling her hand away and gesturing placatingly. “No one here is going to hurt you.”

“All you people ever do is hurt me!”

His declaration seems to take her by surprise, confusion flickering across her face before a realization sparks in her eyes. Anakin is already quite certain he’s going to hate the words that are coming out of her mouth even before she says them. “Anakin,” she says, softly and simply, “you aren’t with the Cult any more. You’re safe.”

“Where am I, then?” He hisses, his words dripping with venom.

“You’re back on Coruscant.” She replies. “You’re safe, in the healing halls of the Jedi Temple.” 


	6. Chapter 6

For a moment, it feels as though Anakin’s world has been turned on its axis. Like the words of the young beta have pulled the floor from beneath him and sent him into free-fall, light-headed and stomach churning with the dizzying sensation. But only for a moment, before it rights itself again. Only for a moment, because when Anakin’s world stops spinning, he is  _ angry _ \--angry in a way he hasn’t been for as long as he can remember. It consumes the Force around him like a wildfire, licking up his spine and across his skin. Filling him with a molten rage that chokes him, renders him speechless, despite the torrent of words bubbling up in his chest.

How dare she. This is perhaps what he wishes to say the most. 

_ How dare she. _

The caretakers and their Master have tried many different strategies to tame him over the years: with drugs, and with kindness, and with violence when he would not accept their offered hands. When he would not allow himself to believe the Master’s words, and welcome the teachings into his heart even if it would mean release from his frigid cell. But this? They had never stooped to this. Never gone so far as to manipulate him so crudely, so blatantly. Never had they dared to touch on his history with the Jedi Order, and his desperate longing to return to the safety of their Temple. It held such a sacred place in his heart. 

“How  _ dare you,”  _ Anakin finally manages to choke free. He’s not much to look at, bruised and gangly and malnourished. He hasn’t seen the sunlight in far too long, and the bags beneath his are deep and dark. He’s hardly strong enough to pull himself to his feet, in the wake of his induced heat, but something about his tone and the look in his eye draws the young beta up short. Something about it scares her, that fear a palpable spike in the Force, as it might have scared him if he’d truly heard himself speak. But he doesn’t, he isn’t, and the Force is electric at his fingertips.

It is instinct that turns his clenched fist to a clawed hand, listening to the beginnings of fervent whispers, barely audible over the pounding of blood in his ears. They call for vengeance, for blood and suffering, to repay in kind all the ways that he was made to suffer in his long years of captivity. They promise freedom and destruction, if only he takes their offered hand. If only he gives in to them, he will become powerful enough to destroy those who have dared to claim ownership of what they could never hope to contain. He can make hurt, as they’ve hurt him now, crossing this final line into his most sacred of memories.

The woman before him gasps, a look of utter shock and disbelief crossing her face. Only for the briefest of moments, however, as that quickly expression morphs into a panic. Her hands reach for her neck, as though attempting to grapple with the invisible noose tightening around the soft line of her throat with the closing of Anakin’s fist. It is an entirely useless gesture; no amount of her squirming will loosen his grip.

She seems to realize that, her face reddening as she gasps uselessly for air. Instead, she casts her hands out toward the omega, the shoving motion followed by a wave of power that knocks Anakin backwards and clear off his feet. He hits the ground hard, head spinning for a long moment from the impact. It might have been worse, if not for the padding of the nest he’d created. The layers of blankets and cushions break his fall, enough that he recovers faster than his so-called Jedi captor.

She is still doubled over and gasping for air when he leaps to his feet, his grip on her broken by the loss of his concentration. He doesn’t intend to stick around long enough to make another attempt, however. Instead, he takes the presented opportunity and dashes from the cell as quickly as his legs will carry him.

Several people startle when he tumbles out into the hallway, nearly plowing into a group standing just outside the door. Perhaps they were coming to rescue the beta, perhaps it was just a coincidence of timing, but they stumble out of his way all the same. Only one has the presence of mind to make a grab for him, but Anakin ducks neatly beneath his outstretched arms and continues his sprint down the hall. A siren sounds only a moment later, loud enough to draw the attention of the other beings lingering in the hallway, but not enough to mask the sound of pursuit as the group from the doorway begins to chase after him.

They won’t catch him. Anakin won’t go back to a cell.

The hallways beyond the one containing his cell are bustling with life. Beings he doesn’t stop to look at come and go, providing obstacles to both himself and his pursuers as they blunder into their paths. Anakin bobs and weaves in and out of the crowd, breathless with a foreign excitement. For the first time in a long time, freedom is at hand. The prospect of it seems to have instilled fresh strength into his weary muscles, leaving his exhaustion and pursuers behind. 

In a passing thought, he’s grateful to be wearing pants. It would have been quite a spectacle to be dashing through the compound in naught but his skin. That wouldn’t have stopped him, but it does save him some embarrassment.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, but his feet seem to be following an instinctive path. Rounding corners without hesitation, stumbling up and down flights of stairs as they present themselves. There is something else, too, strangely familiar about the compound.

Anakin rounds a final corner and freezes mid-stride, finding himself at the top of a grand staircase. A long hall juts out before him, filled with towering pillars. Milling around between them, dressed in whites and beiges and browns, are  _ people _ . He hasn’t seen anything like it since his days in Tatooine’s spaceports, humans and aliens alike talking and mingling and eventually disappearing down any of the passages lining the great hall as they go about their business. The Master’s followers were all human; he hadn’t laid eyes on an alien since he arrived at their compound so many years ago. Golden sculptures glisten in the sunlight streaming through great transparisteel panes. It heats the tile beneath his bare feet and washes the omega in its warm glow. Anakin can feel it sinking down into his bones, blossoming into warmth in his chest. The whispers of the Dark are chased away in the presence of so much Light. 

He knows this place, knows these people, knows this feeling. But it can’t be. He can’t be here.

This truly is the Jedi Temple.

The weight of heavy fabric settles across his shoulders, startling him of his reviere. He catches the edges, pulling it closed around his bare torso as he spins to face whoever has come up behind him. One of his pursuers, no doubt; he’d all but forgotten about them, in his moment of disbelief. Whatever words he might have said, however, die on his tongue when he catches sight of the man standing behind him.

It is his mate: the Master’s Heir, but entirely unlike Anakin has seen him before. He’s dressed neatly in crisp white Jedi robes, his previously overgrown hair and beard have been cut back and neatly groomed. A thorough wash has cleared the lingering grime from his pale skin, the faint scent of the soap mingling pleasantly with his natural scent. The attitude of alpha arrogance is also gone from his posture, and without it he seems smaller than Anakin remembers, nearly eye to eye with the young omega. Short even, for an alpha, he’s startled to realize. He always seemed larger than life, standing beyond the bars of Anakin’s cage, that strange connection lingering between them.

“What are you doing here?” Anakin asks, feeling the bond between them flare to life in the alpha’s proximity. As he reaches out along it to brush against Anakin’s mind.

“I’m a Knight of the Jedi Order,” the man announces, a gentle smile on his thin lips and a wariness in his eyes as he extends a hand into the space between them. “It’s a pleasure to properly meet you, Anakin. My name is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”


End file.
